By Pete Goodrich

"Jonah Hex! A hero to some, a villain to others, and wherever he rode, people spoke his name in whispers! He had no friends, this Jonah Hex, but he did have two companions: one was death itself...the other...the acrid smell of gunsmoke."

Well, here we have the prototypical description of one Jonah Hex, scarred gunsfighter and bounty hunter of DC's wild west. And yes, it's a little heavy-handed. But hey, the character's roots are in old school Western comics, I'd expect the prose to turn a little purple, considering the roots.

I'll go out on a limb and say that Jonah Hex is probably what most fans will think of when they think 'DC Western comic,' as he's not only the most visually striking of that lot (Bat Lash's dapper yellow vest aside) but also the most enduring of the group; and has been in print in one form or another for the past 4 decades. Let's take a look at a select couple of moments, shall we?

For myself (and I bet a majority of folks) the first real encounter I had with the character was through Veritgo. Part of the initial launch of Vertigo in the 1990's was Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo written by Joe R. Lansdale, and drawn by Tim Truman. Maybe because it's the first real story I read about Hex, maybe it's because Joe Lansdale is one of my favorite writers, or maybe because Truman is one of my favorite artists...but this to me is the perfect Jonah Hex story. It's dark, it's funny, and Jonah Hex isn't a bland Western hero in the vein of a John Wayne. He's got dimension, showing a strong leaning towards being sympathetic, noble, and vengeful. The vengeance, that's where the money's at. He's got a heart, but at the very end of it Jonah Hex is a hard man. And Lansdale and Truman show it best of all, I think.

Sadly, it doesn;t look like we'll get to see much more of their take ont he character. After the second Jonah Hex mini (Riders of the Worm and Such) Lansdale, Truman, and DC comics (and Time-Warner methinks) were sued by the Winter brothers, some country/western act that were parodied in said mini. I guess the two didn't really dig on being parodied as inbred, cannibalistic, half-man/half-worm pigfuckers. DC/Vertigo published another Lansdale/truman Hex mini (Shadows West) a couple years back, and that seems to have been it for that team and Jonah Hex. A pity, really. In terms of Western stars, the Vertigo Hex was Clint Eastwood. Dark, gritty, dirty and quintessential.

But! Recently DC has gone on a Western (almost) renaissance! Well, not really. They just published Brian Azzarello and Marcelo Frusin's Loveless, which is a great, dark little Western in the vein of HB's Deadwood. And more on topic, they just kicked off another Jonah Hex ongoing and also published Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex, a gigantic collection of black and white reprints of Jonah Hex's earliest appearances. And it's awesome. Certainly in terms of the price point (17 bucks for over 500 pages of comic book is a hell of a deal) but aso, the material within.

It's just good, solid Western comics. It's gritty, not like the Vertigo stuff was gritty (there is no pigfucking) but there's a lot of violence. Do you like violence? There's plenty of it. Gunfighting, knife fighting, fistfighting. It satisfies the ol' bloodlust. And it's quaint, it's what the 70's thought the 1870's looked like. The black and white art holds up very well, actually. And while the stories are a little hokey ('Southern' accents in comics are always a source of comedy as far a I am concerned) they're good hokey. Endearingly hokey. And Jonah Hex is the same mean bastard I was introduced to in the Vertigo miniseries, which was nice to see.

Again in terms of Western stars, I'd call this one the Yul Brenner. Which reminds me that I have a DVD of the Magnificent Seven that I have to watch.

I have some qualms with it, though. There's some questionable racial depictions in here. Now I know it's supposed to have been a re-representation of the post-Civil War West and all, but man. There is an issue within the collection where Hex is battling a large, black man who takes the time to threaten Hex with a beating via...watermelon. Yeah. Yeah, I know. That was...unfortunate. No, actually it was pretty damned wrong. This was published in the 70's? Wow. I need to read the whole thing (I only read a select couple of tales) before I'm going to judge the thing as a whole, but finding that one story left as bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

The newest incarnation of Jonah Hex suffers in comparison to the excellence that was Two-Gun Mojo, but I'm a biased sort of guy and admit that not a lot of comics compare well to Two-Gun Mojo. But Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti wrote us a pretty good Hex. He's a touch more cultured than I'm used to for one, but after reading the dialogue in the Showcase collection it's actually pretty nice to read a Jonah Hex who doesn't scan like Rogue and Gambit's drunk uncle. The scene with him and foster in Foster's study calmly chatting over drinks seemed false and out of hex's nature (and where'd they get the ice cubes from?) but they play him like he's the same hard man that I was expecting to read about, and it works. And the harsh vengeance he brings at the end of the issue: that's some good vengeance.

And the art, that's something else. I think the first I ever saw Luke Ross was either on some forgotten Valiant title, or perhaps on some Avengers mini from the mid-90's that should be forgotten. But here, the guy brings some brilliant work to Jonah Hex. it reminded me very much of the fine work Cary Nord is doing on Conan,. Luke Ross is enough to keep me on this title alone, even though I think I like the way Gray and Palmiotti are playing Hex. It doesn't feel 100% legit though, it doesn;t immerse me in a Western like say Deadwood does, or the aforementioned Two-Gun Mojo did. It feels a little too clean...but it's still an excellent read.

Yes, definitly a worthwhile read. I'll stick with the title for sure. Continuing with the movie theme: I dub this Young Guns. For Young Guns was totally awesome, if a little cheesy.

And finally we come to the last decade of Jonah Hex (Showcase=70's, Two-Gun Mojo=90's, Jonah Hex= Now) we come to the Jonah Hex book of the 80's: Hex. Yes, they still published western-style stories with the man into the 1980's, but when you think 80's and you think Hex: you think of this bad idea. "Let's send Hex into the early 21st century!"

It's pretty bad. There's some great art by Mark Texiera to be seen here, thats for sure. But it's all typical 'dystopian-future-as-seen-from-the-80's-perspective' stuff. Evil corporations rule the world! The most precious resource...water! Leather-clad biker gangs violently roam a world empty of cows! In the 21st century peopl still have 80's style punk haircuts! And there's Jonah Hex in the middle of it, kicking ass, and adapting to the far future more easily than I think somebody transported a couple hundred years into the future really could have handed. But I digress.

The upside being: I paid less than a dollar for each of the six issues that I did buy. Thank Ebay! There is no movie equivalent for this one, as I can't think of any Westerns that were quite so poorly conceived. Okay, this is the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure of Westerns: not a western at all, but look! A famous gunfighter!

I can see why the character stagnated until the early 90's, when Lansdale and Truman did their thing and made the character worth reading again. And after the unfortunate abino-fueled hiatus for the character in the later 90's, it's it's nice to see a return t form for the character in the latest series. Check it out.

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